After Wounded Knee: Correspondence of Major and Surgeon John Vance Lauderdale while Serving with the Army Occupying the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, 1890-1891

Editior’s Notes

Editor's Notes The journals and correspondence of John Vance Lauderdale are preserved in the Western Americana Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. The collection totals twenty one boxes of material, covering the period 1838-1931. The preponderance of material spans the years 1852-1916. The letters presented here are his entire correspondence from 1 January 1891 to 3 March 1891. No evidence could be found of a journal. Most of the letters are written on 71/2" by 10" lined paper folded to form four pages per letter. For a few letters he used 8" by 9" lined paper folded length wise to form four pages. The letters written en route to Pine Ridge used both sides of a 3" by 6" pocket-size tablet. He used mostly black ink, although he sometimes used pencil. Lauderdale wrote in a steady, even hand, and. most letters are surprisingly legible, considering the circumstances under which they were written. In retirement Lauderdale collected his letters and mounted them on a heavy backing paper using tape. Over the years the adhesive from the tape has bled through the paper, causing the ink to run and some of the pages to stick together. This is particularly true of the pocket-size tablets that contained his correspondence from 1 January 1891 to 6 January 1891. Therefore, some portions of these letters are missing. This method of mounting has done little damage to the remaining letters. Lauderdale's words are presented as written in his own hand. In rare cases, where text has been omitted due to illegibility, ellipsis points have xv xm After Wounded Knee been inserted. In cases where one word is illegible, because of damage from the tape or otherwise impossible to read or decipher, I have inserted words that logically fit the idea of the sentence. These insertions are indicated by enclosed brackets. Lauderdale frequently misspelled names and incorrectly identified people . When a mistake is suspected, my correction appears in brackets. All parentheses and underlining are Lauderdale's, and although spelling and some punctuation errors have been corrected, no attempt has been made to change word tense or usage. Lauderdale's words are presented exactly as he wrote them, and some words or phrases may be offensive to certain people or groups. I have kept these words and phrases strictly for historical considerations and regret any discomfort they may cause the reader. ...